walking under them made me aware of the canopy above me.
will it last when the gates are gone?

Hamlet:
...
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
...

Shakespeare: Hamlet, II,ii, l. 311.

Doors And Gates

Doors and gates
Walls and fences
The occasional moat
Obstacles encountered
Along the path
Some strong and forbidding
Others collapsing of themselves
Some easily surmounted
Others seeming unassailable
The progress and measure
Of our journey taken not
By the blockades we meet
But in how we meet them